1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates to an opening and closing system for automatically opening and closing a closing openable member such as a door of a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are known vehicles in which a closing openable member such as a door is driven to be automatically opened and closed by a motor. However, if an obstacle exists on an opening and closing track of the closing openable member, there may be fears that the closing openable member is brought into contact with the obstacle and the obstacle is caught between the closing openable member and the vehicle body when the closing openable member is closed. Thus, there have been proposed an apparatus which detects an obstacle to avoid a contact between a closing openable member and the obstacle (For example, refer to JP-A-2015-31108 and JP-A-2014-194123).
A catching detecting device described in JP-A-2015-31108 monitors an electric current, which flows to a motor for driving a door, and detects catching of an obstacle based on an increase amount of electric current flowing to the motor. In addition, an obstacle detecting device described in JP-A-2014-194123 detects an obstacle based on a change in an electrostatic capacity formed on a periphery of a closing openable member and stops the driving of the closing openable member when the obstacle is detected.
In the catching detecting device described in JP-A-2015-31108, the catching of the obstacle is detected based on the increase amount of electric current which flows to the motor. Then, the electric current flowing to the motor increases as a result of the closing openable member being prevented from being opened or closed by the obstacle with which the closing openable member is brought into contact. Owing to this, the contact of the closing openable member with the obstacle cannot be avoided in advance.
In the obstacle detecting device described in JP-A-2014-194123, the obstacle is detected based on the change in the electrostatic capacity formed on the periphery of the closing openable member. Then, the electrostatic capacity formed relates to a distance between the closing openable member and the obstacle, and therefore, the obstacle can be detected before the obstacle is brought into contact with the closing openable member, whereby the contact of the closing openable member with the obstacle can be avoided in advance. However, the electrostatic capacity is easy to be influenced by an object lying on the periphery of the obstacle to be detected, so that there may be concerned about a deterioration of detection accuracy of the obstacle.